1988 Wharton graduate Mark Pincus has donated $5 million to launch the Pincus Artificial Intelligence Lab for Organizational Innovation at the Wharton School.
Pincus's gift — the largest of its kind given to the Generative AI Labs at Wharton — will support GAIL's efforts to explore "innovative AI applications for business and education." The new lab will aim to further the application of AI as a tool for "organizational innovation."
“Mark Pincus’ insights and experience are instrumental to our goal of developing AI solutions that address complex business challenges and make transformative impacts in the lives of students, entrepreneurs, and leaders worldwide," Wharton School dean Erika James said.
Pincus is the founder of social gaming company Zynga, who created the popular game Farmville. His donation was inspired by the realization that AI has potential in product development.
Last year, Wharton became the first business school to partner with OpenAI. The partnership aimed to improve research and teaching capabilities through the application of AI. The initiative created two new funds — an AI Research Fund and the Education Innovation Fund.
The AI Research Fund will provide faculty with resources to investigate the relationship between AI advancement and business. The Education Innovation Fund will provide the financial support for curriculum-specific innovation.
GAIL co-directors Ethan Mollick and Lilach Mollick combine research and prototyping in their work, and upcoming GAIL projects include creating a board of AI advisors to help entrepreneurs and managers succeed, learning how to restructure organizations around AI, and PRIMER, an open-source AI agent-powered platform to empower educators.
The Pincus Artificial Intelligence Lab for Organizational Innovation will further examine how AI can assist in key roles like product management and help outline new ways to organize and foster productive human-AI interactions.
“My hope is that the [Pincus] Lab becomes a center for experimentation and practical AI applications that enhance how businesses operate and help leaders address real-world challenges," Pincus said in the Wharton School announcement. "Through collaboration with faculty and students, we can create tools that have a lasting impact."
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